There is an entire industry preying on scam victims specifically. It works because you are motivated, because your loss is documented somewhere a scammer can see it, and because the promise being made is the one thing you most want to hear.
The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center has issued repeated public warnings about this, including about companies falsely claiming an ability to recover funds lost in cryptocurrency investment scams, fictitious law firms targeting crypto victims, and criminals impersonating IC3 staff to tell victims their funds have been recovered. Read that last one twice: the impersonators' opening line is that they have already found your money.
Hard rules — no exceptions
- Anyone who demands payment up front to recover your money is scamming you. Fee, retainer, deposit, tax, "unlocking" charge — all the same thing. Legitimate recovery is paid from proceeds.
- No government agency will ever charge you to recover funds, or refer you to a company that does. If "the FBI", "the SEC", or any regulator contacts you about recovering your loss and money is mentioned, it is an impersonation.
- Nobody needs your seed phrase, private key or wallet password. Ever, for any reason. Handing it over hands over the wallet. Anyone asking is stealing, whatever the explanation.
- Nobody can reverse a blockchain transaction. Any "blockchain reversal", "chargeback on crypto" or "re-mining" service is fiction.
- Do not install remote access software for anyone offering help. They will use it to empty your accounts while you watch.
Warning signs
- They contacted you. Cold approaches by phone, email, social media, or a comment on a post where you described your loss. Victim lists are traded; a post about your loss is an advert to them.
- They already know your case. "We have located your funds" before you have told them anything. Often they know real details, because they bought the list — or ran the original scam.
- Guarantees. A promised outcome or a specific recovery percentage before anyone has reviewed the case. Real assessment starts with which deadlines have passed, and half the honest answers are discouraging.
- Urgency. A window that closes today, a fee that rises tomorrow. Pressure exists to prevent you checking.
- Payment in crypto, gift cards, or to a personal account. No legitimate firm bills that way.
- Borrowed credibility — a regulator's logo, a licence number belonging to a real firm, a testimonial page with stock photographs, an AI-generated video spokesperson. Check the licence number on the regulator's own register, not on their site.
- A new website. A recovery firm with a domain registered a few weeks ago, no verifiable company registration, and a contact address that is a virtual office.
How to check anyone, including us
- Look up the company registration in the official national register, and see whether the name and address match what they claim.
- If they claim regulation, search the regulator's own register for the licence number. Check the firm name and address attached to it — cloned-firm fraud copies real licence details.
- Check the domain's registration date.
- Search the name alongside the word "scam". Read the complaints, not the reviews.
- Ask directly: "Do you require any payment before I receive recovered funds?" Get the answer in writing. Then hold them to it.
If you have already paid a recovery scam
You are not stupid, and you are far from alone — this is the most common second loss in the whole field. Treat it as a fresh scam and act on it today: report the payment to your bank, report it to your national fraud body, and file it with us as a claim in its own right. A recovery-fraud payment is frequently more recoverable than the original loss, simply because it happened recently.